


...That Night at the Opera

by VFDBaudelaireFile13



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Depression, F/M, Gen, Heartbreak, Murder (mentioned), Violence, addiction (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 01:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19801792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VFDBaudelaireFile13/pseuds/VFDBaudelaireFile13
Summary: You’ve heard of the tragic tale of the Baudelaire orphans? Well, of course, you have. But do you know why Count Olaf had such a deep and unhinged hatred towards the Baudelaires? Do you know what actually transpired that night at the opera? I have gone further into, my associate, Snicket’s works and I believe I have found the answers to all these questions. These events you are about to read will tell you what went down that fateful night at the opera…





	...That Night at the Opera

**Author's Note:**

> This is my interpretation of what went down that dreadful night at the opera. Please note, that just because I can slightly sympathize and empathize with Olaf as a character, does not mean I like Olaf as a person. There are many reasons to hate Olaf and his tragic backstory does not make his treatment to the Baudelaires or even the Quagmires (or anyone) justified. I do not think any of his actions are justified. This was just a fun idea I had and I am truly excited to share.
> 
> This story does contain mild violence, profanity, and mentions of alcoholism (although that is brief and at the end). I hope you guys enjoy this. Thank you for the support.

Count Olaf was on top of the world. He was the happiest he had been in years. He was a prominent member of a secret organization comprised of many young elitists all with special gifts and a grey moral compass. He had been recruited when he was just a bit younger, maybe a decade ago, he wasn’t too sure. He loved the organization so much it felt like just yesterday he had been recruited. He loved what they stood for both in their mission to make the world a quieter and safer place; fighting both literal and figurative fires of the world. He also loved it for what it stood for  _ him,  _ as an only child to two busy but loving parents, Olaf in his youth grew up rather lonely. He had looked at books and theatre for company, but with VFD he found a family. His group of friends was like a little family to him. In all honesty, he couldn’t ask for more. He had never felt this kind of connection with anyone before, so it made him feel as though he had found a place where he belonged anytime he was on a mission, at a meeting, at one of their secret headquarters, or even when he glanced down at the tattoo he had on his left ankle. This tattoo was VFD’s way of branding their members, a way to show ownership of that person; Olaf only saw it as a reminder that he was loved and he belonged somewhere. 

He was an up and coming actor, who just got a starring role in the Italian opera,  _ La Forza Del Destino.  _ He had gotten the role thanks to one of his closest friends, Beatrice Baudelaire, who also was a part of the opera. Olaf had always shown a love for theatre and had a great passion for whenever VFD needed him to hone a disguise and play a part. That was probably his favorite part about acting and VFD, it gave Olaf a lot of practice for both. Due to this, he was a master of disguise; well he considered himself a master of disguise. People outside of VFD were always fooled by his disguises, whereas some of the members of his organization could see through it almost immediately. But he never looked at that aspect like he had failed, he just felt like it further proved his point that he  _ belonged  _ with these people. Like they know him so well, of course, they can see through any ridiculous disguise. He was more than ecstatic and grateful when Beatrice had told him that she had talked to the director into giving him an audition, which he practiced for night after night until the day of the audition. When he got the part he ran up to Beatrice and gave her the biggest bear hug, thanking her and even buying her a bouquet of violet roses. 

Olaf was also head over heels in love with Katherine “Kit” Snicket. Kit Snicket was the most adventurous, bloody brilliant, and insanely attractive woman Olaf had ever met. To Olaf, she was _ his everything _ . She was his whole world. He felt as she was his better half, his soulmate, his true love. He planned to spend the rest of his days with her by his side. He had never felt this way about any other partner, he had a history of dating within the organization, a few of his previous girlfriends were Josephine Anwhistle and Georgina Orwell, both relationships did not work out but he had remained civil and friendly with them seeing that they were all still a part of VFD. But Kit, Kit was different, she understood him; she  _ completed  _ him. He was unsure how he had ever lived a day without her, and he was over-the-top happy that soon he would never have to again.

Olaf had recently proposed to Kit, and to his surprise she said yes. It wasn’t a surprise to his parents though, who supported Olaf in everything he did. He couldn’t tell them much about VFD because of the fact that it is a secret organization, but he had told them he was apart of a drama club and that was he had met Kit. His parents were his biggest supporters, being an only child, when they weren’t busy with their jobs, their entire world revolved around their son. Although Olaf, like most people, at times saw his parents as embarrassing; he loved them wholeheartedly. His parent’s reciprocated that same amount of love and support that he gave to them, he remembered when he had first brought up popping the question to Kit, he was expressing how nervous and anxious he was that she was going to decline his proposal. Now, don’t get it twisted, Olaf was what many would call an egotistical narcissist, but that was around other people whom he didn’t know very well; in front of his parents it was always easy for him to show his insecurities and weaknesses because instead of insulting him, they encouraged him and sometimes even showed him the errors of his thinking. 

“What if she says no...or laughs...or both,” he had asked his mother and father that afternoon as he got ready for his date with Kit. 

“If she’s as smart as you said she is, she’ll say yes without hesitation,” his father had replied back to him not even looking up from his copy of the  _ Daily Punctilio.  _

“Why would she say no? You’re a catch!” his mother replied straightening his tie for him. 

Olaf smiled at his mother but didn’t say anything back, just simply nodded. He looked in the mirror and he just felt like there could be a lot of reasons for her to say no. For one, he had a long ungroomed unibrow, there wasn’t much he could do about it, this ran in the family. His father also had a unibrow but his mother loved his father anyway. But it wasn’t just superficial reasons that he felt like Kit would say no, there was plenty of internal insecurities. Although he did like to read, Olaf did not feel as intelligent as Kit or all the other VFD members. His biggest trouble was spelling, at an early age, Olaf’s mother thought maybe her son was dyslexic, but due to their always busy schedules and Olaf always detesting towards the notion, they had never got him properly diagnosed. Olaf did not want to know if there was anything wrong with him for fear that he could be kicked out of VFD, for fear that people will find yet another thing to use against him.

After he had gotten ready for his date, his parents begged and pleaded that he bring Kit over so all four of them could celebrate, he agreed but not before begging his parents for several minutes to spare him of any and all embarrassment, and just like typical parents, they had promised to be cool but ended up bringing out the baby pictures and talking about less than preferred childhood stories about Olaf to Kit that made Olaf’s face turn beat red. But Kit never cared, she found it cute and endearing. She had always told Olaf to mind his parents because he was truly lucky to still have them. Unlike Kit and her brothers, who lost their parents to a terrible fire at a very young age, Olaf was in his early twenties and still had his parents around. 

Olaf’s life was honestly perfect. Everything was falling into place. His social life, his career, and his love life. His only problem was figuring out which of his two best friends should be his best man at his wedding. Coincidentally enough his two best friends also happened to be Kit’s brothers, Jacques and Lemony. The three of them were like the three musketeers, he loved every minute he could hang out with Jacques and Lemony, to Olaf it was like having brothers. Kit, on many occasions, had jokingly offered to give her brothers to him because they were annoying growing up. Olaf could see it. Jacques was always so righteous and Lemony had this weird thing of randomly defining words. 

Right now Olaf was leaning more towards choosing Jacques because a small part of him was annoyed with Lemony . You see, only a few days after Olaf had proposed to Kit, Lemony had proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Beatrice, and he had used R’s ring to propose, this aspect alone annoyed him because it’s not like Olaf hadn’t spent weeks figuring out the perfect ring to get Kit. He had nonchalantly asked all the right questions, he also secretly figured out Kit’s ring size, he had prepared for this making everything perfect. 

Olaf sort of felt like Lemony was stealing his thunder. Olaf had wanted all the attention on him and Kit, he was truly excited to show off Kit and her engagement ring and show all of VFD that he was engaged to the most intelligent and beautiful member of the organization. He didn’t want this just for himself but for Kit, too. Kit was a very modest woman who didn’t truly care about attention but Olaf did. He wanted everyone to see his Kit-Kat the way he saw her.  _ Perfect. Deserving of the world.  _ Now that Lemony and Beatrice were also engaged, to him it felt like he had competition; Lemony was just as bat shit crazy about Beatrice as Olaf was about Kit. Olaf didn’t want to think of his best friend in such a negative light, but his jealousy made him feel like Lemony did this simply to steal his thunder; although his sensibility told him that Lemony proposed to Beatrice because he loved her not to piss off Olaf. 

He kept pondering which of the two brothers should take the role as his best man. Although he was annoyed with Lemony, he didn’t want to lose _ his _ chance to be Lemony’s best man at his wedding. Olaf wasn’t sure who to pick for this task, he didn’t want to insult one of his best friends by picking the other. He knew whoever he chose there was going to be tension. 

_ I guess this is why you should only have one best friend. Hmmm...maybe I’ll just choose Bertrand Markson...he’s a pretty cool guy.  _ Olaf thought to himself as he looked at the clock. “Shit, I’m late,” he said to himself. He had thought he gave himself enough time to come home from his first performance of  _ La Forza Del Destino  _ to get ready for the VFD gathering. He was in such a hurry that he didn’t even stop to look for his parents after the show whom he knew was in the crowd cheering him on. He had assumed they would have met him at home where he’d be hastily getting ready and listening to their appraisals about his performance. He wondered what could be keeping them, they weren’t ones to not come home, so before leaving he did what he always did, he left a small light on in the living room for his parents when they came home.  _ They must be having some sort of date night or going out to buy me a gift of some sort.  _ Olaf thought to himself as he ran out of the house. 

As he arrived at VFD headquarters, he groomed his hair and his eyebrow, it’ll be the first time he and Kit are at VFD as an engaged couple. He wanted to look his best, he did not only represent himself anymore, but he also represented Kit. 

He strolled in and could hear the voices’ of his friends all gathered in a room upstairs. He could faintly hear his name, his heart started pounding in his chest, his anxiety was taking hold. 

_ Why were they talking about me? Were they talking shit about me behind my back? Were they telling Kit she made a mistake when she had said yes to marrying me?  _

He could feel a tear in his eye form. “No...calm down, these people are your friends... _ your family _ , they’d never wrong you,” he told himself in a whisper. He wasn’t too sure but he was going to find out. If they are talking shit about him behind his back, he was going to catch them in the act that way they couldn’t lie to him later about it and make him feel like his insecurities had taken ahold of his better sense. 

He quietly began up the stairs to the direction of the voices, his anxiety was slowly turning into unbridled confusion as he faintly heard his parents' names being spoken by his friends.  _ Why on Earth would they be discussing his parents? _

He went into full stealth mode as he drew closer and closer to the room where the discussion was taking place. His heart starts pounding again as he distinctively hears Kit speak his name. He looks around the hall but didn’t see her. She hadn’t caught him listening...she was also in the room. Now Olaf’s curiosity was a newfound high, he hoped that Kit was in there either defending him or speaking about him in a good way. He honestly would be crushed if Kit was in there bashing him with the rest of them. He positioned himself right outside the closed door and began to listen in…

He could hear Kit crying, “Beatrice...what have we done,”

“We did what we had to do,” Lemony stated trying to comfort his sister.

“I understand that but don’t any of you realize just what we did!” Kit nearly yelled.

“Sis, chill out. You had the easier role, you brought Beatrice and Bertrand the poison darts,” Lemony stated.

“I know, I am an accomplice...and frankly so are you!” 

“You think I am happy with myself Katherine, this is one of the worst things I’ve ever done,” 

“And we’re not done, yet” Bertrand replied.

“What do you mean?” Kit asked, “What more could we do? What more could VFD seriously need us to do? Look I get that what we do is supposed to make the world quieter and safer but...but that...how?...” her voice trailed off as she shook her head and leaned against the wall.

“Kit, you know we aren’t done, there’s still the matter of Esme’s…” Beatrice began.

“Stop,” Jacques said turning to Beatrice, “that’s not helping. Let’s not discuss such unpleasantries, right now. Kit is upset,” 

“...it had to be done,” Beatrice said. “We did a wicked thing for a noble reason,” 

Kit’s eyes grew a bit darker as she looked up at Beatrice, “Please tell me how  _ killing Olaf’s parents _ has a noble purpose,” 

Olaf stopped listening as Beatrice began to explain, he couldn’t listen. His heart had shattered in his body, did he hear her right? 

_ There was no way I heard her right. She couldn’t have said...she couldn’t have said that. No...no...it couldn’t be true. _

Olaf felt his inner core start to heat up. He felt tears leave his eyes. He held his cool, he needed to make sure he had heard Kit right. As he listened back in, 

“How did you guys even know that they’d be there tonight?” Montgomery Montgomery asked. Monty was one of the world’s leading herpetologists and one of the prominent members of VFD.

“It was easy, Beatrice had gotten Olaf the starring role in the opera,” Bertrand began.

Olaf’s stomach felt queasy...they used him to lure his parents to their doom. He felt his whole stomach fill up with guilt. What if he had looked for them after the show? Would he have been able to save them? Would he have been able to get them to leave the opera house before his so-called friends were able to shoot poison darts at them?

Olaf was engulfed in both sadness and anger, he was on the verge of a mental breakdown, he was so close to screaming at the top of his lungs. He was doing his best to keep his cool, after all, he wanted to hear everything that they had to say. Every little confession they were spilling, he wanted to know. He looked to the ground and saw his tears falling. He did his best to cry as silently as he could as to not alert his former friends that he could hear them. 

It wasn’t until he heard Lemony admit to meeting up with his parents after the show promising them that he’d take them to where Olaf had asked for them to meet him. 

The next few seconds for everyone was a little blurry as the door had been slammed open harshly hitting the wall behind it and a blurred silhouette of a man lunged himself at Lemony and began to throw punches. It took everyone in the room several seconds to realize that Olaf had been the one to burst through the door and was now beating the shit out of Lemony. 

Jacques and Bertrand quickly ran towards the altercation, watching Olaf flail his arms rapidly, with tears in his eyes and muffled screams from his throat, due to him suppressing his cries and trying to replace them with screams of unbridled anger. Jacques tried grabbing one of Olaf’s arms as Bertrand went and grabbed towards the other one. Eventually, after a few failed shots at grabbing Olaf, both men had successfully grabbed one of Olaf’s arms and began to pull him off of Lemony. As Beatrice and Josephine rushed to Lemony’s side, Olaf began to shout profanities at nearly everyone in the room. 

“Let me go, you pieces of shit! You’re next!” Olaf yelled at his former friends.

“Bro, relax. Calm down,” Jacques replied with a frown.

“Do  _ NOT _ tell me to relax!” Olaf yelled, “Let go of me, you fucking cowards!”

“We’re not going to let go of you until you relax!” Bertrand replied.

Olaf started kicking his feet rapidly at both Bertrand and Jacques. They had the audacity to tell him to calm down. In his eyes, they were lucky that he hadn’t brought a weapon with him or they’d all be dead on the floor and Olaf would be in a room filled with a pool of his tears and their blood. 

Lemony stood up wiping the blood from his nose, “Olaf, what has gotten into you?” 

“Don’t play dumb with me, Snicket!” Olaf warned. “You fuckers killed my parents…” although he was still engulfed in anger, he had said this sentence a bit softer...like a wave of sadness had taken over his body and overpowered his anger. He looked around the room at the people he had called his friends, people he had chose to see as  _ family.  _ People he had loved not thirty minutes ago. People he had been growing a connection with since he was a young teen. All of this was thrown down the toilet.  _ They betrayed him. _ His secondary family had murdered his actual family; effectively leaving him with  **_nothing._ ** He was now  _ alone _ ...he had  _ no family _ , he had  _ no friends _ , he had  **_no one._ ** The people who stood with him in this room never cared about him. This was now obvious to Olaf. His deeper emotions began to get the best of him because before he could stop himself, he was crying. He struggled to get Bertrand and Jacques to let him go, they weren’t sure what to do. On one hand, they didn’t want to keep Olaf restrained as he cried, on the other hand, they were afraid of what would happen had they let him go. After looking around the room for some guidance, Monty simply nodded his head and the two young men released their former friend onto the floor where he sat and sobbed into his hands. 

Kit’s heart was breaking at the sight of her true love breaking down in front of everyone they knew. She knew Olaf was hurting and she knew she helped cause that so she thought it was better to just stay leaning against the wall as if she wasn’t there. 

It had taken Olaf several minutes to stop crying so hard to where Josephine was the first to go up to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder, to which he almost immediately pushed her hand away. “Get away from me,” Olaf said, “If you know what’s good for you,”

“There’s no need to give hollow threats here, Olaf” Jacques stated.

Olaf began to stand up, “Oh, if you’re not careful, they’ll be more than simple threats, Snicket!”

Beatrice and Lemony looked at Olaf, “We did a wicked thing for a noble reason,” Lemony reiterated, to which Olaf glared at him, “I don’t want to know your reasoning for _murdering my parents!_ _You fuckers will rue this day!_ ** _Do you hear me you will rue it!”_**

“Olaf, we didn’t have a choice,” Beatrice said, “VFD…”

Olaf simply glared at Beatrice for a long moment and then slowly smirked at her, “You  **_always_ ** have a choice!” he said taking a step closer to Beatrice, “and you’ve made your choice. You all have made your choice!”

“Olaf…” Lemony started.

“Shut it, Snicket! I don’t care what you or anyone else in this wretched organization has to say!” Olaf yelled. “You will all pay for what you’ve done!” he turned his gaze slowly from each former friend in the room. He looked to Monty and Josephine to Jacques and Bertrand, and then slowly glaring at Lemony and Beatrice. “Not only will you pay for this,  **_you’ll burn_ ** .” The scarier aspect of this threat was how Olaf said it. Unlike his other threats which were yelled and directed at no one in particular, Olaf had said this in a harsh but slow way, in a cruel tone and stared directly at Beatrice and Lemony. 

Jacques had had enough with this. “Maybe it’s better if you leave now, Olaf…” he said after a minute. Olaf simply glared at him, “And to think I was going to make you my best man,” Olaf said to him which produced a look of guilt on Jacques’ face.

Olaf had turned to leave, he didn’t want to be in the same room as these traitors any longer, he had made his peace. He was going to get revenge, some how...some day. He won’t rest until he had the upper hand on all of these self-righteous pretentious assholes. But he stopped dead in his tracks when he heard Beatrice speak up.

“Man hands on misery to man,” she had said under her breath. Olaf quickly turned around and faced her with fire in his eyes.  _ Was this pretentious bitch really going to quote one of his favorite poems in a way to justify killing his parents? _

Before anyone had a chance to react Olaf harshly shoved Beatrice against one of the walls, not far from where Kit stood. “Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf,” Olaf said in a menacingly cruel tone which sent chills down Beatrice’s spine, “Get out as early as you can... **_And_ ** **_don’t_ ** **_have any kids yourself.”_ ** he said as he stared into her eyes with a look of pure unbridled hatred. He continued to stare at her until Lemony and Bertrand pushed him away from her. 

Olaf didn’t say  _ anything _ to anyone after that. He only gave each person in the room one last chilling smile as he began to head for the door once more. Right as he reached the door, he stopped once again dead in his tracks and turned to Kit, he slowly walked to her but didn’t say anything, Kit couldn’t look him in the eyes. Each time she tried, her eyes fell to the floor or to one of her brothers who stood cautiously unknowing of what Olaf planned to do next. After several moments, Kit looked at Olaf and did her best to stare into his eyes, “I’m sorry…” she said as she looked into his hurt eyes. His eyes were now lifeless, she no longer saw the happiness and glow that his eyes had once produced, she only saw smoke from a fire and dark storm clouds. They broke him. _ She broke him. _ She helped destroy the very man that she had loved with her whole heart. 

Olaf didn’t say anything at all to her, he simply frowned as a few more tears betrayed him and fell from his eyes when he stared into Kit’s eyes, he  _ still _ saw the woman he loved. He saw his Kit-Kat, his kitten, his true love. But he knew deep down in his soul that after a betrayal this large it was easier to end it. Looking at her every day would be a constant reminder that his parents were dead and he had been betrayed by everyone he cared about, even Kit. Olaf had no doubt in his mind that she meant it when she said she was sorry, she was the only one who seemed to be sorry. Everyone else seemed to be following VFD blindly, not understanding why he’d be so upset over this. But it was no use, nothing she could say could change how he felt. When he looked in her eyes, he could see she _ was  _ sorry, but he’d be damned if he was going to marry the woman who helped murder his parents.

After wiping a few more tears from his eyes, he reached down slowly and gently grabbed her hand and slipped the engagement ring off her finger and put it in his pocket. He released her hand and turned around and walked away from her, he walked away from all of his old friends, he began to walk away from the organization as a whole because they had ordered his friends to murder his parents. He vowed to destroy all of them, to destroy VFD, to destroy them all once an for all. He was going to make the world a noisier and more dangerous place to live and he was going to do that with the one thing VFD fought against the most, fire. He meant it when he said they would pay for this. He meant it when he told Beatrice that she’ll burn. If he had it his way, nearly all of them would burn. Believe it or not, he still had a soft spot for Kit, if anyone was going to be spared from his revenge-seeking, it’d be her...simply because she was the only one to apologize to him. It didn’t mean he could forgive her...but it did mean he could spare her. 

As he reached the hallway, he nearly bumped into Esme Squalor, who was running late to the VFD gathering as well. “I’m sorry I’m late, darling. But it is  _ very In _ to be late, that’s why they call it _ fashionably late _ ,” Esme stopped in her tracks when she noticed that her acting coach had a puffy face, red eyes, and wet sleeves from wiping his tears. “Woah, Olaf...are you okay?”

Olaf simply shook his head and looked at Esme, she had been one of the only people who hadn’t betrayed him and he appreciated her for that. He just gave her a small smile and a rather quick hug. Afterward, he began to walk down the hall.

Esme turned around and called out to him, “Olaf… Where are you going… The gathering barely started,” 

“I know…” Olaf said as he realized that he had heard her name in the conversation something to do with their next task involving her, seeing that she was his only friend left, he decided to turn around and give her a warning about the betrayal, she, too would experience at the hands of VFD and it’s most prominent members, “Esme, just...watch your back. They’re up to something,” he said to her as he walked down the hall and out of the building leaving Esme to ponder what that could even mean. 

That night Olaf downed bottle after bottle of wine as he mourned the loss of his parents, his former friends, his fiance, and his former self, who was now inexplicably depressed and distrusting of the world. Olaf had watched as his life fell apart in the matter of a day. It’s true what they say, you should always be cautious when you’re on the top of the world because there’s nowhere to go but down. No one knew that better than Count Olaf has begun to drown his sorrows and plot his devious revenge. 

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, comments help me grow as a writer and I honestly love hearing what you guys have to say. so if you can please leave a comment and let me know if you liked this or if you didn't. Any and all constructive criticism is welcomed.  
> Thanks again you guys.
> 
> -Sue


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